Kokoschka's Doll

Kokoschka’s Doll tells the story of the relationship between the great Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka and Alma Mahler. Kokoschka first met Alma in April 1912, less than a year after her husband Gustav had died, when he was invited to paint her portrait. Alma was herself a gifted pianist and composer and after she performed Isolde’s Liebestod for Kokoschka, he knew he would fall in love with her.

Their relationship was both passionate and tempestuous, and Kokoschka’s obsession with Alma became such that he made the bizarre decision to have a life-size doll made in her likeness. The drama of Kokoschka’s Doll unfolds from the painter’s untidy studio where, as an old man, he remembers the relationship they once enjoyed.